The Internet is a well-known, global network of cooperatively interconnected computer networks. The world-wide web portion of the Internet is a collection of server computers (referred to as "sites") that store documents which are typically accessible by the public. The Intranet uses similar protocols and has a similar user interface to the Internet. The Intranet, however, restricts access to a network by users outside of a defined group, such as users who are not employees of a corporation. Hereinafter, any description of the Internet also is applicable to Intranet, unless otherwise specified.
Software generally known as "browsers" is now in wide-spread use for retrieving (also known as "downloading") documents (also known as "web pages") from the world-wide web and viewing such documents in hyper-text markup language (HTML) format. These HTML documents generally include text, HTML "tags" that specify the format of a document, and links (referred to as "hyper-links") that point to related documents on the network and other files containing information (e.g., sound, images, video, etc.) to be combined into the document. In use, a browser allows a user to navigate (also known as "browse") between documents and sites on the world-wide web.
Software object components also may be incorporated into the HTML documents for displaying executable content, such as for animations or information processing. Currently, most Internet browsers support embedded software object components in the form of ActiveX controls, Java applets, and Visual Basic Scripts. These software object components are inserted into HTML documents using the &lt;Insert&gt; or &lt;Object&gt; HTML tags.
Security on Internet and Intranet sites is becoming increasingly important. For example, sites may contain public information, which anyone can access, and proprietary information, which only selected users can access. Accordingly, some sites are now maintaining non-secure and secure areas. A non-secure area includes a public area, in which a user can browse without restrictions, and a private area that is open to users passing through a one-time registration process. A secure area, on the other hand, requires a user to enter a user identification and a password each time the user enters the secure area. While the private and secure areas provide at least some level of security, the public are a provides no security whatsoever.
In some situations, users that are accessing sites also desire security so that they are not impersonated by other users. For example, many sites are storing information relating to a user's browsing characteristics, such as what links the user activated, how often the user accesses the site, and how long the user remained on a particular web page. Additionally, sites may store customization information. For example, a document may be displayed to the user having customization options relating to news, sports, entertainment, etc. Based on the options the user selects, the document only displays content related to those selected options. Moreover, the site retains the user-selected options so that the customization information is re-displayed when the user re-accesses the same document at a later time. Storing information relating to user activity or storing customization information for a user is called "tracking" a user. Users want to ensure that a site is not tracking an impersonator of the user, thereby providing the impersonator with access to the user's private customization options.
To store user information, such as customization information, many sites have a database entry for each user that is accessible using globally unique identifiers ("GUID"). The GUID is a 128-bit string that uniquely identifies each user. The GUID is created by a server when a user first accesses a web site and is stored on the client computer in a small amount of local storage (i.e., local to the client computer) often called a "cookie." When a user returns to the web site, the browser searches local storage to determine if it has a cookie for that web site. If so, the browser transmits the cookie to the server. Typically, however, GUIDs are only used to track users in non-secure areas. In secure areas, on the other hand, sites track the user's activity using the user identification (rather than the GUID) that was entered by the user to access the secure area.
These differing techniques for tracking the user across secure and non-secure areas require multiple data storage areas for a single user. Maintaining such multiple storage areas is expensive, especially considering the volume of users accessing Internet sites. Additionally, storing user information in a database entry based on the user identification provides little security, as a user identification is often easy to guess (i.e., many users use their first name or their spouses name as a user identification). Storing user information based on the GUID also has problems since the GUID uniquely identifies a client computer and not the user. For example, if the user connects to a site from different computers (e.g., home and work computers), the site will store multiple database entries for a single user since each computer has a different GUID associated with it.
To overcome these shortcomings, a system and method is provided for tracking a user across both secure and non-secure areas on an Internet and/or Intranet site using a single database entry. Additionally, the system and method provides a heightened level of security in non-secure areas.
In one aspect of the invention, when a user first accesses a non-secure area on a site, such as a public area, the user is assigned a token, such as a GUID, that uniquely represents the user. The token is used as a key to a database entry associated with the user on the site, as described above. When the user first accesses a secure area on the same site, the user is prompted to enter a user identification and a password. After receiving this information, the site uses the user identification, rather than the token, as the key to the database entry across both non-secure and secure areas. The user identification is then stored in a cookie and is received by the site each time the client computer passes the cookie to the site. Thus, using the user identification as a key, only one database entry is needed to track users across both non-secure and secure areas.
In another aspect of the invention, additional security is provided by storing a copy of the token in the associated database entry. When the user accesses the site and the site receives the cookie from the client computer, the copy of the token in the database entry is compared to the token stored in the cookie. If the tokens match, then the user is considered authentic. The user may then be provided with documents that are customized according to customization information stored in the user's is database entry. If the tokens do not match, either an error is generated or the user is provided with generic, uncustomized documents.